Tour 10

Asphalt-paved roadbed throughout. Southern Ry. parallels route between Orange and Charlottesville.
Accommodations between termini only in a few tourist homes.

The eastern section of this route traverses an area of small farms, second-growth woodland, and parks that memorialize battles of the 1860's; westward are rolling hills with productive farms and large estates.

State 3 branches west from US 1 (see Tour 1a), 0 m., on William St. in FREDERICKSBURG.

The SUNKEN ROAD (L), 0.6 m., was a Confederate line of defense during the Battle of Fredericksburg (see Tour 1b).

SALEM BAPTIST CHURCH (L), 4.2 m., a red brick building erected shortly after the organization of its congregation in 1844, was within the Confederate lines during the Battle of Salem Church, May 3-4, 1863. Its walls show many battle scars. Moving toward Chancellorsville and reaching Fredericksburg at daybreak on May 3, the Union General John Sedgwick drove back General Jubal A. Early, and advanced westward against the brigade of General C. M. Wilcox, which was forced to retreat slowly toward Salem Church. There Wilcox was reinforced by General Lafayette McLaws' division. Repeated Federal attacks were repulsed before darkness ended the fighting. On May 4, Early began an offensive to connect with McLaws at the church; Anderson's division arrived to reinforce McLaws. As night fell before the attack could be made, Sedgwick withdrew across the river.

A junction with County 612 at 5.3 m. is locally called FIVE MILE FORK. County 612-the old Orange Plank Road-was paved in 1854 with planking.

At 6.6 m. is a junction with County 620.

Right here to the SITE OF SPOTSWOOD'S IRON FURNACE (L), 3.7 m., where slag piles remain to mark the first air furnace in America operated by Alexander Spotswood early in the eighteenth century (see Tour 3b). Production of charcoal for iron furnaces early depleted the forests of this vicinity and produced the area of tangled second-growth woodland called The Wilderness.

At 8.7 m. is a junction with the Catherine Furnace Road. Before the Battle of Chancellorsville, the evening of May 1, 1863, the Confederates extended their lines along this road.

Left here to the MAURY MONUMENT (R), 1.6 m., near the site of the birthplace of Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-73). Maury has been called the father of the Naval Observatory and of the U.S. Hydrographic Office. His work in meteorology resulted in the establishment of what later became the U.S. Weather Bureau. He plotted the present North Atlantic ocean lanes, conceived the idea of an Atlantic cable, and furnished much data and advice for laying the first cable; he also wrote on naval education and reform.

CHANCELLORSVILLE, 10 m., is a crossroads named for the CHANCELLOR HOUSE (R), used by General Joseph Hooker as headquarters during the Battle of Chancellorsville. The structure, burned during the battle and restored in 1908, was later destroyed again.

The Battle of Chancellorsville was the last of a series of Federal failures in Virginia, after each of which Lincoln changed Union commanders. General Hooker, who had supplanted General Ambrose E. Burnside, was placed in command of 130,000 men north of the Rappahannock. General Robert E. Lee had 57,000 Confederates on the south bank. Beginning an offensive on April 29, 1863, Hooker sent his cavalry raiding toward Richmond and placed a corps near Fredericksburg. Then hurriedly moving the greater part of his army up the river, he crossed to the south side and intrenched here.

General Lee, opposed by two forces, either of which, with a common reserve, outnumbered his entire army, left a division at Fredericksburg and moved the remainder to oppose Hooker. Here he retained 14,000 men to oppose the Federal front and sent Jackson with the main body to attack Hooker from the west. On May 2, Jackson's corps struck the Union rear and drove the corps of General O. O. Howard in rout over the main body.

While riding across the front of his lines at dusk to reform his tired and scattered troops, Jackson was shot down by Confederate bullets. Eight days later he died (see Tour 1A).

At dawn the next morning General J. E. B. Stuart attacked from the west and Lee from the east. The Union army, caught between these forces, fell back across the Rappahannock River. The Federals lost 17,000 men, and the Confederates about 13,000. The Union forces did not again cross the river until Gettysburg had been fought.

At 10.5 m. is a junction with a park road.

Left here to FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS (L), 0.1 m., a small hill, where Federal gun pits have been restored. Between this point and HAZEL GROVE (R), 0.5 m., held by the Confederates during the battle, some of the hottest fighting of the battle took place.

The JACKSON MONUMENT (R), 10.9 m., marks the approximate spot where 'Stonewall' Jackson was shot. Wounded in the left shoulder, forearm, and right hand, he was removed to the Wilderness Tavern, where on the following day his left arm was amputated. On Monday evening, May 4, General Lee directed that he be sent to Guinea Station (see Tour 1A).

Adjoining the monument is a NATIONAL PARK CONTACT STATION (information).

At 14.4 m. is a junction with State 210 (L), the Brock Road. General Jackson, completing his flank march around Hooker, came into the turnpike at this point and moved eastward; on May 5-6, 1864 this was the central point of the Battle of the Wilderness, the first meeting of Grant and Lee, and the beginning of a struggle that lasted 11 months and ended with Appomattox. Grant, newly in command of the Union armies, planned that four major forces should converge on Richmond. With 102,000 men, he crossed the Rapidan and on May 5 started west from this point to attack Lee in Orange County. Lee, learning of the Federal activities from lookouts stationed on Clark Mountain (see below), met Grant with 64,000 men. The two armies, scattered along two roads, faced each other three miles west of this point and fought in the tangled underbrush.

The Federals, having fortified the Brock Road, concentrated the next day against General A. P. Hill's corps on the Plank Road. Thrown back and routed, the Confederates were rallied by the arrival of General James Longstreet's corps, which pushed the Federals back to their former position. Longstreet, leading an attack similar to Jackson's at Chancellorsville, was, like Jackson, wounded by his own men. His loss at this critical moment caused confusion that kept the Confederates from converting their advantage into a decisive victory. Federal losses were 14,000, Confederate 7,500.

Left on State 210 to the ALEXANDER HAYS MONUMENT (R), 1.4 m., a mounted cannon. General Hays, killed here on May 5, 1864, commanded a brigade of Hancock's corps. Hays had commanded the Third Division of the Second Corps at Gettysburg, which, with Gibbon's Second Division, bore the brunt of Pickett's charge on the third day of that battle.

At 1.6 m., is a junction with County 62 1, the Plank Road; R. here 0.3 m. to the spot (L) where General James Longstreet was wounded.

On County 621 is the WADSWORTH MONUMENT (R), 0.6 m., a large block-stone pillar, to General James S. Wadsworth, who was mortally wounded near this spot on May 6, 1864. Commander of the Fourth Division of General G.K.Warren's Fifth Corps, he was attacking the Confederate left flank when Longstreet's reinforcements broke through.

County 621 continues westward to the place, 1.1 m., where General Lee attempted to lead the Texas Brigade. Longstreet's assurance that his line would be recovered within an hour caused Lee to comply with the soldiers' plea, 'Lee to the rear.' In the clearing (R) is the SITE OF THE WIDOW TAPP'S HOUSE, near which General Lee had his headquarters.

On State 210, at 4.2 m., is BROCK STATION of the Orange and Fredericksburg Railroad, the point from which Longstreet's flank movement began.

On State 210 are the SEDGWICK MONUMENT (L), 10.1 m., and a PARK CONTACT STATION. General John Sedgwick, killed near by on May 9, 1864, was put in comm nd of the Federal Sixth Corps shortly before the Battle of Chancellorsville.

At 10.4 m. on State 2 10 is a junction with County 648, near which, on May 8, began the 12-day Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. With Confederate cavalry opposing the Union advance along the Brock Road throughout the night of May 7-8, both armies bad moved southward simultaneously along parallel roads. In the morning when the Federal force charged an improvised breastwork near this point, they found two brigades of infantry had replaced the cavalry. During the day the line was extended by other Confederate forces while the Federal line was being formed. In the meantime cavalry under General Stuart and General Sheridan were carrying their fight toward Richmond.

May 9 was given over chiefly to artillery fire, sharpshooting, and the formation of lines. On May 10 the Union forces made three unsuccessful attacks. May 12 brought the bloodiest fighting of the entire war. The Federals attacked at 4:30 in the morning, capturing General Edward Johnson's division Of 4,000 men and 18 guns and pushing well into the Confederate lines. As the Southern reserve counterattacked, General Lee again tried to lead his men into battle. Terrific fighting followed in the 'Bloody Angle.' Federal guns, brought within 300 yards, threw shells into the Confederate masses; opponents struggled in hand-to-hand combat; blood ran in streams; fallen men were trampled and-sometimes four deep-had to be removed to provide standing room; and lines of men passed loaded muskets forward to those in position to fire. Between 50,000 and 60,000 men struggled viciously until past midnight.

For five days both armies maneuvered. A Federal offensive of May 18 was ineffective, and the next day a Federal movement began to the east and south. When fighting ended on the following day 17,000 Of 110,000 Federals and about 14,000 of the 50,000 Confederates were dead, wounded, or captured.

Right 1. 1 m. on County 648 to County 608 and R. 0.4 m. to MILLBROOK (L), an imposing house of red brick, two full stories above a high basement. The house, remodeled in 1836, was the last home of Mrs. Fielding Lewis, George Washington's sister, Betty (see Fredericksburg). Spotsylvania records show that Mrs. Lewis bought Millbrook in 1795. Two death notices that appeared in Fredericksburg newspapers, April 11 and April 12, 1797, both saying that 'Mrs. Betty Lewis, relict of the late Fielding Lewis,' died 'at her seat in this county,' would seem to fix Mrs. Lewis's death at Millbrook and not elsewhere as frequently asserted.

At 10,7 m. on State 210 is a junction with an improved road; L. here along the road that follows generally the Confederate line of defense during the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. The central NATIONAL PARK CONTACT STATION, 0.8 m. is at the apex of 'Bloody Angle.'

SPOTSYLVANIA, 12 m., on State 210, is at a junction with State 51 (see Tour 1b). This seat of Spotsylvania County is little but a green with a courthouse, jail, and tavern.

The two-story yellow brick COURTHOUSE, with its high pillared portico, was built in 1870, replacing one ruined during the fighting of 1864.

An act of the assembly of 1720, setting forth that 'the frontiers toward the high mountains are exposed to danger from the Indians and the late settlement of the French to the westward,' created the county as part of a defense for the Tidewater. A fund of L1,500 was provided for a church, a courthouse, and ammunition to equip each Christian tithable. The county extended to the Shenandoah River beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. In 1732 the seat, first established at Germanna (see Tour 3b), was moved to Fredericksburg, in 1779 or thereabouts to a place two miles south of Spotsylvania, and in 1839 to its present site.

The SPOTSYLVANIA TAVERN, opposite the courthouse green, is a long rambling brick building with a roof that slopes forward to shelter a veranda with heavy columns. The southern half, built shortly after the Revolution, was added to in 1839. Though the building has been used continuously as an inn under various names, it has at times sheltered a school, a post office, and Confederate military leaders.

The SITE OF WILDERNESS TAVERN is (R) at 14.9 m. In a hospital tent behind this tavern Stonewall Jackson's left arm was amputated (see above). The tavern was the headquarters of General Grant and General George G. Meade during the Battle of the Wilderness.

At 15.3 m. is a junction with State 20 (L), from this point westward, the main route.

Right on State 3 to GERMANNA BRIDGE, 5 m.; R. here 0.7 m. to the SITE OF GERMANNA (see Tour 3b).

Near a NATIONAL PARK CONTACT STATION at 17.2 m. are restored Confederate trenches of the Battle of the Wilderness.

LOCUST GROVE, 20.1 m. is a crossroads known in 1785 as Old Trap and subsequently as Robinson's, or Robertson's Tavern, for a tavern that stood here. Around this tavern, in November 1863, General Meade gathered his troops for a campaign in which he planned to surprise Lee, in winter quarters some distance west. The campaign came to nothing because confusion in assembling the Federal army gave Lee time to intrench on Mine Run, three miles west.

At 23.5 m. is a junction with County 614, the Gold Mine Road.

Left here to the GRASTY TRACT (L), 0.5 m. The Virginia Mining Company bought
this five-acre gold -field in 1831 for $30,000 and began operations that have continued
sporadically ever since. In early years the yield of gold was worth from $6 to $32 a ton.

At VERDIERSVILLE, 25.5 m., on the morning of August 18, 1862, General Stuart and several aides barely escaped capture by a Federal scouting party. Stuart lost his ostrich-plumed hat, but a week later turned the tables by capturing General Pope's tent and personal effects. When, on the night of the 17th, General Fitzhugh Lee failed to meet Stuart as ordered, Major Norman R. Fitzhugh was sent to find him. When Fitzhugh was captured during the night he was carrying a copy of the Confederate plan of campaign. Because of the information then obtained, Pope withdrew across the Rappahannock River and thereby postponed his defeat
by a week (see Tour 4a).

RHODESVILLE, 27.2 m., a hamlet formerly known as Lafayette, was on the Marquis Road, used by La Fayette in June 1781 when he marched southward to check Cornwallis. Returning on November 19, 1824, La Fayette found a triumphal arch erected here.

CHESTNUT HILL TAVERN (R), 32.9 m., a 10-room frame structure built in 1822 and now a residence, is said to have been one of Henry Clay's favorite stopping places.

At 33 m. is a junction with County 628.

Right here to County 615, 3.2 m.

1. Left on this road 0. 7 m., to another junction with County 628 and R. to HARE FOREST (L), 2.6 m., a long, white-painted, brick, two-story house. This is one of three places in Virginia that may have been the birthplace of Zachary Taylor (see Tour 9).

2. Right on County 615, 1.2 m., to a junction with County 627; R. here 3.7 m. to a junction with a private trail that leads 2 m., to the top of CLARK MOUNTAIN (1,000 alt.), which was the site of a Confederate Signal Station built by Jackson in order to watch the movements of General Pope. Later it was used at intervals. Around the base of this mountain Lee gathered his troops in August 1862, preparing to attack Pope's army between the Rapidan and the Rappahannock Rivers. Moving rapidly from Richmond, where he had defeated McClellan, he wished to defeat Pope before McClellan arrived with reinforcements. Confederate movements did not progress as planned, and Pope retreated northward without attacking. On May 2, 1864, from this tower Lee saw the beginning of Grant's movement that preceded the Battle of the Wilderness.

On County 615 is the WADDELL MEMORIAL CHURCH (L), 2.3 m., a frame structure honoring James Waddell (1739-1805), the blind preacher, who was buried here in 1880, (see Tour 3c).

BLOOMSBURY (R), 34.4 m., a small weatherboarded house with dormers, a steep gabled roof, two large end chimneys, and a small four-columned portico, was built about 1722 by James Taylor (1674-1729), who was a member of Spotswood's expedition of 1716 and became a pioneer settler of the western country (see Tour 3c). He was a great-grandfather of James Madison and Zachary Taylor, and his sister was the mother of Edmund Pendleton.

At 37.3 m. is a junction with County 6 12.

Left here to MEADOW FARM (L), 1.6 m., a white-painted brick mansion, now surrounded by boxwood and old shade trees, that was built in 1855 on the site of the home of Zachary Taylor (1707-68), whose grandson and namesake became President of the United States. In 1769 his sons, Hancock and Richard, made a trading trip by water from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Hancock returned to Kentucky in 1773 and was killed by the Indians the following year. Richard, the father of the second Zachary, was an officer in the Revolution, married Sarah Strother in 1779, and moved to Kentucky in 1784 or 1785. General Longstreet, after being wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness, was brought to Meadow Farm for several days before he was taken farther south. Colonel Erasmus Taylor, then the owner, was Longstreet's quartermaster.

At 41.8 m. is the pillared entrance (L) to MONTPFLIER (private), once the home of James Madison, 'Father of the Constitution' and fourth President of the United States.

From among ancient trees the long, two-story house faces a wide view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The brick walls are stuccoed and the roof, built in several hipped sections, extends over a finely denticulated cornice. The four widely spaced Roman Doric columns of the great portico rise directly from the ground, quite independent of an iron-railed porch terrace. The exterior, with simple window frames, is ornamented only by well-proportioned fanlights in the pediments of the portico and front door. The numerous and very spacious reception rooms have simple white woodwork.

The central part of the house-two rooms on each side of the transverse hall on both floors-was built by Colonel James Madison, about 1760. His son and namesake added the portico in 1793 at the suggestion of Thomas Jefferson. A few years later he built one-story wings and made other minor changes after plans drawn by William Thornton, amateur architect of the capitol in Washington. In 1907 new owners raised the wings to the level of the main part and extended the house toward the east, without destroying its fine proportions. The house was suited to the entertainment that President and Dolly Madison dispensed here, as in Washington, on a large and generous scale. On one occasion go persons were served dinner at Montpelier. Madison dealt graciously and successfully with a mother-in-law-in-the-house problem by giving his mother an apartment, with her own kitchen and servants.

Behind the house is a natural amphitheatre that has been made into a large formal garden on plans drawn by General La Fayette while visiting the Madisons in 1824. Until Madison's last years, the descending terraces, box-bordered paths, and geometrical flower beds were kept neatly groomed by a French gardener. The present owners have restored the garden. A charming little classical summer house, which concealed an icehouse and slave quarters, stands near by.

Born at Port Conway, Virginia (see Tour 16a), James Madison was graduated from Princeton College in 1771 but remained for a year studying theology. As a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1776, he proposed unsuccessfully an article providing for religious freedom. In 1785, however, he pushed through the general assembly Jefferson's Statute of Religious Liberty. As a delegate in the Continental Congress in 1780 he drafted instructions to John Jay, then representing the United States in Spain, to insist on free navigation of the Mississippi River, but it was not until 1803, when he was Secretary of State under Jefferson, that he saw this objective attained through the purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory.

In 1781 he favored an amendment to the Articles of Confederation that would give the Congress power to enforce its requisitions. At the expiration of his term in 1783, he took up the study of law and in 1784 was elected to the Virginia general assembly, where he paved the way for the National Constitutional Convention. On his proposal the Virginia and Maryland commissioners met to discuss navigation and commerce. When the Alexandria and Mount Vernon conference led to the Annapolis Convention, Madison and Alexander Hamilton worked together on the proposal that all States be invited to send representatives to consider commercial questions, and the Constitutional Convention resulted. The Virginia Plan, which served as the basis of deliberation in Philadelphia, was Madison's handiwork. As delegate he took a leading part in the debates and convinced of the historical importance of the occasion, kept fun and careful notes that are the chief source of information on what happened during the secret sessions.

Though the Constitution did not wholly satisfy him, he was able to swing the Virginia delegates for its adoption; later he worked for ratification by his State and wrote 20 of the 85 Federalist papers, which had circulation through the Union. After being elected to Congress in 1789, he fulfilled a promise made first to George Mason by introducing the first nine amendments, which, along with the tenth, became the Bill of Rights. He was an opponent of slavery and deplored the compromise that permitted the slave trade to continue until 1808 and failed to provide for ultimate emancipation. Pressure, especially from New England, forced him to abandon the policy of commercial sanctions against Great Britain and brought on the War of 1812, declared during his presidency.

In 1789, in opposing the Alien and Sedition Laws, Madison wrote the Virginia Resolutions, reiterating the limitations of Federal powers, which, together with Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions, served as the foundation for Calhoun's nullification policy in 1832 and furnished the basic argument for the rights of secession in 1861.

When his term as President expired in 1817, he retired to Montpelier, where he died June 28, 1836. Here Dolly Payne Madison, the beautiful widow whom he had married in 1793, the year he began to make plans for a mansion that would be a fitting background for her social graces, won her laurels as America's most accomplished hostess.

At 42.7 m. is a junction with County 639.

Left here to a dirt road, 0.8 m., and L. to the MADISON CEMETERY, 1 m., where a monolith, erected in 1856, marks the grave of James Madison and a smaller stone the grave of his wife. Mrs. Madison died in Washington July 12, 1849-not July 8 as is inscribed on the stone-and her body was moved to this place about 1858.

At 44.4 m. on State 20 is a junction with State 231.

Left here to (L) FRASCATI (private), 2.2 m., screened by trees, undergrowth, and box hedges. A tall portico with four Greek Doric columns obscures more than half the two-story facade. The rectangular brick mansion has a deep cornice below the eaves of a hip roof, to which dormers have been added on the sides. The gracefully traced fanlight above the entrance door extends over the side-lights and is unusually large. The semicircular motif is repeated in a heavy round arch of carved wood with keystone motif spanning the transverse hall midway. That the house was built after the death of a man who inspired its design is evident in the stairs at the back of the hall-in open, un-Jeffersonian view. Only one drawing room is elaborately decorated. Here a deep gray wall is narrowed and framed by a low dado and a fine cornice, with a frieze carrying a design all around, in delicate plaster work. In the gardens, once enclosed by a serpentine brick wall, a double row of huge box trees has formed a vast arcade.

Frascati was built shortly before I830 by Judge Philip Pendleton Barbour (1783-1841), brother of James Barbour (see Tour 9). William Thornton is said to have been the architect, but he can only have supervised the execution of what was clearly a typical Jeffersonian design. The work was done by 'workmen who had been engaged on the University.'

Judge Barbour was a member of the Virginia legislature, a speaker of the National House of Representatives, and presiding officer of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829. Andrew Jackson appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court. This democratic President liked Judge Barbour's liberal views as much as he disliked the Whiggishness of his brother, James Barbour.

BARBOURSVILLE, 50.2 m. (200 pop.) (see Tour 9), is at a junction with US 33. From this point the route continues on County 613.

At 57.1 m. on County 613 is a junction with County 600.

Left here 0.8 m. to (R) a small FRAME BUILDING, at the rear of a Negro church. Here shortly after the War between the States James Ferguson, a white man, gathered together 11 Negro children to be taught the three R's. He first gave his services but later was paid a nominal salary by the county.

The pillared entrance to BUENA VISTA (R) is at 64.1 m. This brick house, built in 1862, is near the site of the birthplace of George Rogers Clark (1752-1818), whose parents, John Clark and Ann Rogers Clark, moved here in 1750 from King and Queen County two years before he was born. The family later moved to Spotsylvania County. George spent several years exploring the Ohio River country and in 1774 was a captain of militia in Dunmore's War. In the early years of the Revolution, in response to Clark's challenge that 'if a country was not worth protecting, it was not worth claiming,' the Virginia assembly appropriated money for the defense of Kentucky. Commissioned lieutenant colonel and at the head of 175 men, Clark, on July 4, 1778, captured Kaskaskia, and in August Cahokia and Vincennes. This territory was ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

FRANKLIN (L), 64.6 m., a story-and-a-half clapboarded house among trees, was in 1799 the home of Dr. William Bache, a grandson of Benjamin Franklin. It is said that Meriwether Lewis (see Tour 17b) once lived here and that he rode horseback every day to Monticello where he was secretary to Thomas Jefferson.